• SONAR
  • Starting from scratch with Sonar 3X, general thoughts?
2014/04/07 12:01:17
Impulse 101
My old PC died few months ago.  I'd been running on it far too long it finally gave up the ghost, so a new machine has been ordered and will be here in a couple of weeks.  My old machine had every version on Sonar from 6 producer through X1 running on it, plus a ton of plugs.  I have decided to start over with just X3 Producer and Waves Silver bundle (bought and paid for) to start with, just to see what I really need. (I have a good number of external processors that I like a lot so I print a lot of FX to tracks and get those sounds that way.  I'd like to know if there is a complete list of all of the plugs and instruments that come in X3?  Just so I can budget ahead for things that I think I would like if I don't find an equivalent in X3's included plugs.  I will be upgrading Melodyne as soon as I register my software.
 
If anyone has any other comments I'd love to hear them.
 
For more information here is my setup.
Computer
i7-4770
Core i7 - 3.4GHz
16GB RAM | 2X-1TB HHD (Data) and 120GB SSD (System and program) 
HDSP 9652 ADAT Pipe card
Presonus ADAT Interface
Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 ADAT Interface
Windows 7 64 Bit 
 
Controllers
Akai MPD Pads
Frontier Alphatrack (Discontinued but brilliant)
Korg X3 keyboard for MIDI
 
External Processors
Ensoniq DP4 (Truly unsung reverb/multi box, designed and programmed by ex-Lexicon engineers)
Eventide H3000 DSE
Roland SDE-3000
Lexicon MPX-1
Fractal AxeFX Ultra
Rocktron Intellifex
Aphex Compellor
and others...
 
Any thoughts from power users.  I'm a senior broadcast audio engineer for a midsize broadcast company (18yrs) and I've got a load of live sound experience as well, you can get as technical as you like.
 
Thanks guys,
JT
2014/04/07 12:03:44
scook
I believe this is a complete list of included plug-ins http://www.cakewalk.com/p..cts/sonar/versions.aspx
2014/04/07 12:15:40
Impulse 101
Thanks,
JT
2014/04/07 12:19:39
Cactus Music
I had a similar situation and found that Sonar Pro 8.5 was all I needed to fill in the gaps. I didn't go back any farther. They are all 32 bit  beyond 8 anyhow. 
I never had X1 or X2 so might have been a few in there but I'm not about to miss them. 
I say carry on and if you run into a missing plug in you just have to have then go looking. 
I'm enjoying my fresh new install and the uncluttered C drive I have now. 
2014/04/07 12:45:15
robert_e_bone
V-Vocal and Beatscape go away, but Beatscape sounds were kept - rolled into Loops and One Shots.  V-Vocal can be obtained again by installing X1 for sure, and I think 8.5.3 had it too.
 
If your data files were backed up, you might want to also consider recovering any/all custom content from prior releases, such as Project and Track Templates, Drum Maps, etc, as well as old projects.
 
Some of your old plugins may have been simply placed in a program sub-folder, like VST Plugins, or wherever, and those plugins could be simply pasted back into wherever you want them on the new system.  This would not work for any plugins that had an install process that actually created a registry key, but lots of freeware plugins were simply pasted in, so those would allow this approach.
 
I would suggest keeping any retained 32-bit plugins in a separate folder in Program Files (x86), and then I would suggest creating an additional sub-folder within that folder, 'x32 Plugins for Sonar x64' or whatever you wanted to call it.
 
I did the above on my system, and as I found particular 32-bit plugins I wanted to keep trying to use in 64-bit Sonar, I would first test them to make sure they would work, and each plugin that I tested and found to work in x64 Sonar was moved into this new sub-folder, and ONLY that sub-folder with the 'certified' plugins was included in the x64 Sonar search path.
 
Bob Bone
 
2014/04/07 14:23:06
Impulse 101
There is one important project that I might need to revisit and it has a ton of plugs on it that I might have to re-source at some point.  All of my old projects and plugs were saved to a pair of external drives and I have all of the software disks and activation codes for my software, hopefully I won't have to get too crazy. 
 
I want to remix that project for next year anyway, including augmenting the drums, which were the most heavily processed part of the mix.  I used Transient Shaper on that quite a bit, so I'm glad that it's still around.  The Waves compressors are the other things that I just can't live without.
2014/04/07 14:35:37
Sanderxpander
Just as a general tip, don't buy any Waves stuff that isn't on sale. Their regular price is quite high and they go on sale constantly. A site like plugindiscounts.com can knock off another few bucks.
2014/04/08 14:10:47
Impulse 101
I definitely got them on sale, I'm cheap.
 
Thnx,
JT
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